Jimmy Kimmel's Silencing Echoes Bill Maher's After 9/11—But Trump Is No Bush

This article is part of The D.C. Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up here to get stories like this sent to your inbox. During his Inaugural address, Trump vowed to “immediately stop all government censorship and bring back free speech to America.” Grind ahead eight months and we have late-night jokesters caught up in a government gulag of autocratic opinion. First, CBS announced it was canceling Stephen Colbert’s nightly roast from New York, nixing the entire Late Show franchise. Now, ABC has “indefinitely” suspended host Jimmy Kimmel for comments about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it,” the host said, imprudently assigning motive in a case before more information was available. He then poked fun at footage of Trump’s reaction before reporters to the horrific murder, which was to quickly pivot to bragging about a White House construction project. The reaction from the Trump Administration was quick and intense. Federal Communications Commission Brendan Carr told a conservative podcaster that his agency could pursue action against ABC because of Kimmel’s comments. Carr followed up on Fox News with a threat to pull broadcast licenses for station owners who are insufficiently MAGA. By Wednesday, Kimmel’s bosses at ABC—owned by Disney—decided to yank him without a definite return date. While dining at Windsor Castle with the British Royal Family, President Donald Trump was demanding other networks similarly can their late-night hosts who use him as a punchline. “That leaves Jimmy [Fallon] and Seth [Meyers], two total losers, on Fake News NBC. Their ratings are also horrible. Do it NBC!!!” Trump posted on his social media platform, Truth Social. Trump has been testing the limits of his power during this second term with abandon. Trump landed millions in cash from ABC and CBS for lawsuits seen as garbage by First Amendment lawyers. CBS agreed to change its interview presentations because Trump said editors protected 2024 Democratic nominee Kamala Harris. And he has sued newspapers for printing less-than-flattering accounts of his record. If this all feels a little familiar, it should. In fact, Kimmel’s time slot on ABC freed up more than 20 years ago soon after another host got canceled for not hewing to the accepted script. Bill Maher’s Politically Incorrect got targeted by advertisers and the White House itself in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks for criticizing U.S. foreign policy. “We have been the cowards, lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away,” Maher said. “That’s cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, it’s not cowardly.” Maher’s remark sparked a public backlash, with White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer saying Americans “need to watch what they say.” But at no point did the Bush Administration publicly threaten ABC’s business. In Kimmel’s silencing, some in the MAGAverse see another win against an intolerant Left. Trump’s orbit has mined victimization for political gain and rallied against so-called Cancel Culture, all while leveraging it to punish anyone who doesn’t match pitch in their hymnals. A mob-driven spreadsheet is circulating in the cesspool of the Internet for anyone who has even been mid in condemning the craven killing of Kirk. The platform formerly known as X and its owner Elon Musk have called for the firing of anyone deemed insufficiently grieving of Kirk. The calls for retribution are not constrained to the fringes, and now whole shows are getting the axe. All because Trump has thin skin and his cogs of government bureaucracy are happy to give him cover. Speaking to reporters on Air Force One late Thursday, Trump suggested the retaliation would continue against networks with too much negative coverage of him. “I would think maybe their license should be taken away. It will be up to Brendan Carr,” he said. We’re still figuring out the full impact of Kirk’s killing. He has become something of a martyr for the conservative Right, an avatar for the MAGA movement, and a symbol of resistance against wokeness. This much is clear, though: the political moment is one ripe for exploitation, and Trump is milking it. While Sarah Palin was happy to poke fun at herself on SNL during the 2008 campaign, Hillary Clinton did the same in 2016, and Harris made a visit to the set in the final push toward Election Day last year, Trump today has one remedy ready: to grab the national clicker and turn the power off. Networks—as they were after 9/11—believed they needed to drape themselves in patriotic bunting and blunt political comments, let alone jokes at the President’s expense. No one should be laughing. Make sense of what matters in Washington. Sign up for the D.C. Brief newsletter.